The Definition of Free: There's free and then there's freemium. Some software, like iMovie, is genuinely free. But just as some video-editing packages are sold in tiers — with more-expensive versions offering more and expanded features — a freemium video program may just be the lowest level of a paid version. Or it may be a trial version that hobbles the end product in various ways, like putting a huge watermark on your video or limiting output formats.
I absolutely love this thing! I've been creating Halo Reach videos for my clan for the past few months, and there are very few issues that I have with it. When I record on my computer, there are 3 or 4 tiny half-circles at the top of the screen (hardly noticible) and sometimes a small (maybe 1-pixel) line that splits off from the rest of my screen, but all of that can be fixed with the video cropping tool that they have included with the software. I know a few other people who have bought capture cards for cheaper and sometimes it runs a blue line down the right side of the screen if they record in high quality, this does better quality with no blue line.
Avid Media Composer's latest version comes with a wealth of new and improved features, such as accelerated high-res-to-HD workflows and automated media management to handle background media tasks while you focus on your creative vision. The $999 price tag is steep for amateurs, but worth it if you're looking for a professional-grade software. As the editing software of choice for summer blockbusters like Star Trek and The Great Gatsby, Avid Media Composer 7 can handle any editing challenge with ease.
Slightly different from the league is Dvolver.com which is a set up providing moviemaking services. Dvolver organizes online film festival ‘Dfilm’ that gives opportunity to the users to make their own digital films. Dfilm has cartoon based software as well which is fun to use. It allows friends and family to chat and talk through cell phones via SMS, MMS, instant messaging and others.
However, it doesn’t have all the features and tools we look for in DVD makers, though it has enough to fit the needs of a novice. Before you can burn a DVD, you need to transform your raw footage into a compelling narrative. As such, this program’s video editing tools are its main selling points. It has a standard timeline/storyboard workflow – you compose the broad strokes of your video in the storyboard and fine-tune it in the timeline. One of the software’s biggest drawbacks is you only have eight editing tracks to build your project, and only one is dedicated to video. This limits the program’s versatility and hinders its ability to create complex projects. As a beginner, you might only need eight tracks; however, as you gain experience, it may become a frustration. In addition, the included DVD burner can’t add menus or chapter breaks.

However, simple editing can be done on the cheap if you’re willing to ditch powerful, high-end software such as Final Cut Pro, or Adobe Premiere, in favor of a more modest program. Let’s face it, you’re probably not going to be taking home the Palme d’Or with the film you cut on your laptop, but your home movies and YouTube uploads can take on a whole new shine with a few straightforward tools.

Finally, we used each program to compress a 4K video file into a smaller resolution. We then examined the results looking for imperfections in the picture such as compression artifacts, motion blur, distortion, ghosting and more. PowerDirector’s results were simply outstanding. We could find almost no indication that the video had been compressed, even when viewed on an ultra-high-definition monitor.
A new standard for 4K video processing - simple, fast and quality-oriented. Edit, shrink, resize and encode 4K/5K/8K and HD/SD videos with minimal effort. macXvideo is engineered for peak performance in processing 4K videos. The unique GPU processing speeds up the workflow to where others can't, ending computer overheating or freezing. An exclusive compression engine is made to compress video like no one else, with minimum output size and every detail reserved. Within a few clicks, you can make amazing movies like a Pro.
After testing six of the most popular free editing suites, our top choice is HitFilm Express 9 for its lavish cinematic capabilities and high-powered interface. For Mac owners, Apple's iMovie is the no-brainer choice, because of its macOS integration, top-notch output, professional themes and trailers, and support for professional shooting and editing techniques. For YouTube and other social media platforms, the free, cross-platform VideoPad is the best option.
I've been seeing a lot of attention paid to creating title effects in the applications over the past year. Apple Final Cut Pro X has added 3D title creation, which is pretty spiffy, letting you extrude 2D titles and rotate them on three axes. Corel VideoStudio in its latest version also adds 3D Titling, though not as powerful as Apple's. PowerDirector's Title Designer offers transparency, gradient color, border, blur level, and reflection in titles; Magix has impressive title templates, complete with animations. Premiere Elements offers a nifty title effect in which your video fills the text characters. Look for an application that lets you edit titles in WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) mode, so that you can type, format, and time it right over the video preview.
It’s the stripped-down version of Adobe Premiere, an industry-standard editing program used to create movies, TV shows, music videos, commercials and online video content from major brands. Although the workflow is much different than Premiere, Elements give you a taste of the tools used by professionals in a user-friendly way. It has three modules to make videos: Quick, which is great for making short videos quickly. Guided, which teaches you the ins and outs of the program, and Expert, which removes all the training wheels and lets you delve deep into your creative ventures. All projects made with Elements can be exported for transfer into the professional Premiere application.
We still live in the days of talkies, so you want to be able to edit the audio in your digital moves as well as the images. Most of the products included here offer canned background music, and many, such as Pinnacle Studio, can even tailor the soundtrack to the exact length of your movie. All of these programs can separate audio and video tracks, and most can clean up background noise and add environmental audio effects such as concert hall reverb. A couple of the products have an auto-ducking feature, which lowers background music during dialog—a definite pro-level plus.
For Those who see this Shotcut is a very good Truly Windows Movie Maker's Successor, for those who are beginners. Its fast, doesn't take long loading the video and more accurate & customizable than Windows Movie Maker its also up to date. NO TRIAL, ITS OPEN SOURCE, AND HAS THE ABILITY TO RECOVER YOUR WORK IF IT CRASHES http://filehippo.com/download_shotcut/ The things that are different from Windows Movie Maker - Adding Track via Timeline Menu (3 Stack Lines) - Adding Video and Audio to Timeline via Drag and Drop - Transitions via Overlap 2 Videoclip in Timeline - Changing Transitions via Click on Transition > Look Top Left for "Open File", "Save", "Undo", etc > Look for Properties > Below Transition is Video > Beside "Video" is a DropMenu with "Dissolve" > Click on it to change - You accurately move around with the Arrow Keys or Timebox - Double Click on video on Playlist to Play, Click on Video Clip in Timeline then Space to play

However, simple editing can be done on the cheap if you’re willing to ditch powerful, high-end software such as Final Cut Pro, or Adobe Premiere, in favor of a more modest program. Let’s face it, you’re probably not going to be taking home the Palme d’Or with the film you cut on your laptop, but your home movies and YouTube uploads can take on a whole new shine with a few straightforward tools.

At $80 Corel VideoStudio Ultimate X10.5 combines an elegant and professional-feeling interface with high-end specialty features like 3D and 4K Ultra HD, making it one of the most satisfying and versatile consumer-level video editors on the market. It also has an elegant, modern-looking user interface, and can export to YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, and Vimeo with all the options you’d expect. It’s versatile, efficient, and top of its class. (Read our full review.)
We also reached out to professionals who use video editing software on a regular basis and asked what aspects are most important to look for in consumer-level programs. Drew Tyler, instructor of digital media at Weber State University, told us there are two primary questions to answer: “Does it fit your eco system?” and “How much do you want to grow into the software?”
We include Premiere Elements on the list mostly because it’s been an industry leader in the video editing game for some time. And $79.99 is not egregious, but we’re here to say that at that price, you’re mostly paying for the name. In the time since Premiere Elements’ inception, too many other products have surpassed it in speed and capability for us to place it among the cream of the crop. That’s to take nothing away from Premiere Elements’ usability, though—specifically for beginners.
There are so many different video formats out there, and one device may capture in a different format than another. Furthermore, different devices and platforms need specific file formats for playback—and those formats may be different than what your camera captures! That means you’ll want software that can import from a variety of sources and that will support many file formats for export.
Most video editing software for consumers and mainstream users is best used for one or another of these specific functions, but there are a few generalists out there, too. We look at the full spectrum: Free video editing software; paid consumer video editing programs that cost $80 or less; and "prosumer" versions that offer deeper feature sets, though usually for high purchase prices.
Advanced abilities continue to make their way into accessible, affordable, and consumer-friendly video editing software as each new generation of software is released. For example, multicam editing, which lets you switch among camera angles of the same scene shot with multiple video cameras, used to be a feature relegated to pro-level software. Now this and many other advanced effects are available in programs designed for use by nonprofessional enthusiasts.
When it comes to free video editing software, Filmora is about as multi-faceted as they come. Filmora is Wondershare’s standard, simple, high-quality video editing offering; but Wondershare also offers FilmoraGo (for mobile editing) and Filmora Scrn (for screen recording and editing). The design is intuitive and easy to use, and comes replete with filters, overlays, motion elements, transitions, and a small selection of royalty-free music. Here are a few more of the “basics” Filmora offers:
Taking a vacation this summer to the shore, overseas, a theme park, or somewhere exotic, like Cleveland? There's a good chance you're going to want to film some of your trip. But instead of letting it languish on your smartphone, DSLR or compact camera, you'll want to polish it up to share with family and friends. That's where a good video editing program comes in.
There are the times when you just want to edit a video -- no fancy collages and no splicing. For that, there's InShot, a handy app that lets you trim, speed up, or add music and filters to video. It's pretty fundamental, but with that comes a high ease of use. You can also add a background, if you like, though we think it's pretty cool to have an overlap of images, like we did with the video below.

With light features also comes a light footprint, and Avidemux takes up little space compared to the other programs in our roundup. It also allows users to change extensions and select individual output formats when they’re finished editing a video, but the less-than-friendly interface makes it difficult to utilize the more intricate features and worthwhile tools. It may remain a bit buggy and prone to crashing, but the program’s defaults still work as intended, making Avidemux a standout choice once you’ve learned your way around the software. Just remember to save your work.

Start your quest for the best video editing software by signing up for the free trial or demo offered by popular video editing software providers. This will enable you to test drive each application’s top features free of cost, do a general comparison, and gauge their suitability for your purposes. Start by visiting the websites of the following leading tools to check the possibility of availing a free trial: Adobe Premiere Pro, CyberLink PowerDirector, Pinnacle Studio Ultimate, and Final Cut Pro. These programs have received high rankings in our video editing software reviews, so check them out.

4k and gif support are boilerplate features for most video editing products today, but one thing Filmora does particularly well is titles. Title tools are trending in video software, and while Filmora’s doesn’t have the functionality of say, an Apple Final Cut Pro X, which can superimpose 3D titles over your videos and rotate them on three axes, it nonetheless has some snazzy titling features for the money you’re spending.

One of the things I really like about working in Movie Maker is that most of the effects, transitions, and themes preview automatically when you just hover the mouse cursor over their buttons. Another plus is the undo and redo buttons are right up top—video editing is a very trial-and-error process—but I suppose it's too much to ask for a history window in such a simple application.

Notable features include professional-level color correction, GPU-accelerated real-time effects, video capture, and nearly all-encompassing format support. However, the free version is only capable of exporting MPEG-4 files with a resolution of up to 720p. Thankfully, Lightworks also offers traditional tools for importing, trimming, and seamlessly weaving audio and video together with a few effortless mouse clicks.
The Dazzle Multimedia DM4100 Digital Video Creator is very useful to import video from your TV, VCR or DVD player into your PC for editing and then converting to PC video formats. The device is exceptionally good for making videos for use on the Web or as e-mail attachments. Thanks to its use of USB its very simple to install and can be "hot-swaped" with other USB device without rebooting your computer.